Santiago, December 3, 2002 (Agência Brasil - ABr) - At a meeting with the president of Chile, Ricardo Lagos, president-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva pointed out that Chile and Brazil experienced in the past painful political processes, which deprived their nations of basic liberties for long periods and committed grave violations of human rights. Lula added that this problem was overcome through elections and social struggles that permitted the reconstruction of democracy. In his view, "the Chilean administrations that have held office in recent years were fruit of a coalition of forces, which, in their political and ideological diversity, made a wager on democracy and achieved substantial progress in this direction." (DAS)